Nearly 30% of municipalities in Japan have no physical bookstores
TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Nearly 30 percent of municipalities in Japan have no physical bookstores due to the impact of population shrinkage and the prevalence of online stores, according to a survey by a publishing industry association.
Of the country's 1,741 municipalities, 482 cities, towns and villages, or 27.7 percent of the total, had no bookstores as of March, with the rate increasing from 26.2 percent in the previous survey in September 2022, according to data released by the Japan Publishing Industry Foundation for Culture.
In the prefectures of Okinawa, Nagano and Nara, more than half of their cities, towns and villages had no bookstores at all, with the rate standing at 56.1 percent, 53.2 percent and 51.3 percent, respectively.
Rural areas suffering depopulation have been particularly hit by vanishing bookstores, while all 23 wards in central Tokyo still had bookstores.
